GCSE English language students are being ‘betrayed’ by the AQA exam board with standards for marking ‘all over the place’, a whistleblower has claimed.

The anonymous examiner used social media to highlight their concerns about a ‘s**t show’ surrounding the marking of one of this year’s papers.

They said examiners have been ‘shocked’ and ‘horrified’ by the examples they were given of answers – called scripts – that deserve full marks, claiming they are ‘crap’.

GCSE English language students are being ‘betrayed’ by the AQA exam board with standards for marking ‘all over the place’, a whistleblower has claimed (stock image)

The examiner wrote on Twitter: ‘The standardisation scripts are all over the place. The meeting where the standard is evaluated and agreed was a farce. We had examiners horrified at the standard.’

Huge discrepancies were discovered when some of the pupils’ papers were checked by a second examiner, they claimed – but ‘only about one in ten scripts’ are marked twice so they fear many more mistakes could be missed.

Following his tweets – which have now been deleted due to fears about being identified – the Times Educational Supplement said it had spoken to the insider and confirmed they were genuine.

The examiner wrote on Twitter: ‘The standardisation scripts are all over the place. The meeting where the standard is evaluated and agreed was a farce. We had examiners horrified at the standard’

‘We have very effective quality assurance measures in place to make sure examiners mark to a high standard. Some of what this examiner has shared on Twitter actually shows that these measures are working, because we’re identifying examiners who aren’t marking well enough.’

An AQA spokesman added: ‘We have around 2,000 examiners for GCSE English language, so regrettably there will always be some who don’t enjoy the experience, but that doesn’t mean they speak for everyone.